Here at our PR SEO agency, we believe that PR is a vital cog in the SEO machine. Without it, you are unable to reach the requirements for specific parts of optimisation. VerriBerri are experts in digital PR and have been assisting businesses in the UK and abroad with acquiring backlinks for over 12 years!
What Is Digital PR?
It’s likely that everyone has heard of the traditional PR, but do you know what digital PR is? Digital PR is an online marketing strategy that helps businesses to boost their online presence. This directly ties into SEO and where google ranks you on the SERP. Backlinks are gained through digital PR and these backlinks from trustworthy sources contribute to the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of your website. You need to create linkable assets (or digital marketing campaigns) that you can then send to journalists and publications. They will then write the content and link to it.
Digital vs traditional PR
Traditional PR focuses on offline pursuits, print publications, TV and radio. In addition to this, it also focuses on the typical print publications industry too. These are mainly used for crisis management and promoting brand awareness through a network of established contacts that people had accumulated over the years.
Although traditional PR still exists, the digital age paved way for new and exciting opportunities. Digital PR targets a range of mediums including online publications, podcasts, social media influencers and blogs. Any digital marketing strategy implemented will have a positive effect on your website SEO value.
Backlinks in SEO
One of the more under used parts of SEO is the use of backlinks. These are links that Google’s crawlers (the bots that scan websites for content) follow. It allows them to jump from website to website, determining whether the content is worth recommending to the user. Since Google’s main purpose is to assist the user with their query, they will rank those most appropriate at the top of the page, also known as the SERP. This will lead to more organic traffic to your site. Who doesn’t want this, right?
Backlinks are placed on other websites. You may have noticed when reading a blog or an online publication that hyperlinks are added in the text. These could be to internal pages, or external sites. If your website is cited in a credible publication or source, Google will see this as a positive and chances of you ranking higher are increased.
EAT
One of the things Google will look out for is EAT. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. These are the individual criteria’s that Google will use to rank your website. Expertise refers to the content on your site and whether it displays expert knowledge in your specific field. Authoritativeness is about how much influence you hold in the sector that you are talking about. Trustworthiness means that the content you put out is valued by others. All of these criteria can be obtained by getting backlinks in notable and trustworthy online publications; if Google’s crawlers find your website through a backlink from a reputable site, it will decide your site and its content display EAT.
How to link build
In order for journalists to pick up your writing, you need to ensure what you’re writing is interesting. It should also be of high quality and should be a well written piece that an audience will want to read. Journalists will not link to pages that add no value to a piece. Our PR SEO agency has formerly established relationships with journalists in order to secure quality backlinks in a range of publications, no matter which sector your business operates in. Our PR team also work very closely with our SEO team to ensure both areas are working hand in hand when it comes to backlinks and digital campaigns.
Things to look out for
Low domain authority
Here at VerriBerri, we know that it is the quality of the backlink that matters, not the quantity. Domain and page authority play a large part in this. We ensure that your backlinks are bringing SEO value and don’t appear like spam. Google will class backlinks as spam if they page you are linked on has a low domain authority. Sites that have a domain authority of 60-100 are considered to be the best. Anything below 30 can be detrimental to your site. 40-50 is the average domain authority for backlinks and this will still improve your SEO.
Non-follow links
Link type also matters. If your backlink is a non-follow link, this will add no value to your SEO. You must ensure every backlink you obtain is a follow link in order to boost your SERP ranking.
Link positioning
The position of your link on the page matters. It must appear at the top or at the beginning of the article. If the link is positioned at the bottom, this tells Google that your link is less likely to help the reader. This will negatively affect your SEO value and will make that particular backlink ineffective.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is when a URL is added to text, attached to a word or phrase. Placing a URL backlink isn’t enough to add SEO value to it. It must be placed on a relevant anchor text as this helps a search engine to understand what your website and content will be about.
Site relevancy
This isn’t as impactful as the domain authority; it will directly impact the quality of the traffic you are receiving from your backlinks. The site your backlink is on should be relevant to your link and the content on your page. Although not as important as the others, this will still impact the EAT of your website.
Using a PR SEO agency
SEO is a difficult beast to tame; it takes years of practise to master it. Add PR on top of that and some people can find it hard to manage. Our PR SEO agency have dedicated teams who all have the required knowledge to be able to secure backlinks in relevant publications.
If you think you could benefit from backlinks to improve your SEO, click here to get in touch with our expert team today – we would love to hear from you!